Was season 7 the off-season?

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Compared to the rest of the series, season 7 was very mild. For most of it, there is no real threat apparent to the viewers. Before they got the dragon, the Army of the Dead didn't look like much of a threat, and Cersei was obviously incapable of challenging Dany. The political schemes come nowhere near what we are used to: Littlefinger's attempt at quarreling the Stark sisters was pathetic, Tyrion's plans were poor and yielded catastrophic results and Varys was inactive. And nothing particularly interesting or disturbing was revealed about the characters and the world.

However, I think this episode made me hopeful of a great final season. It has really set the scene, with the invasion of the dead and Cersei's plan. The Littlefinger saga is over. I loved the character, but the Winterfell arc this season was terrible. And Bran's revelation about Jon's real family is sure to create some friction.

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I think for non-casual viewers it was an off season. Casual GoT viewers, who are quite invested if compared to other shows in general, were really more surprised by the type of twists and last minute rescues that are pretty common practice in modern movies.

For example when Arya says "Are you sure you want to do this?" during the LF scene, that was textbook cue for a Hollywood twist.

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I think what they said in the inside the episode for episode 7 summed it up. Throughout this series the universe is ever expanding and now that it starts to come to a close the universe is contracting. Story seems to be doing the same.

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It was bad, really bad. This season and season 5 were the worst. These people can't write coherently when they don't have a book to follow.

It makes me sad to see so many on this forum still trying to make sense of the plot; you can't. You can't look at the writing of the show too closely. Turn off your brain and just try to experience the emotional cues they're going for.

One thing this series has been great for: the visuals. Because of the budget Game of Thrones will always look amazing.

I don't understand how they can hire such amazing talent for those departments but not writing.

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I think season 5 was the low point, as it was when the show began to remove all of its narrative elements except for plot twists. From thereon in, it has felt as though the writers believe that a plot twist is the only effective way to explain anything in a story.

It was also the moment when villains began to become cartoon one-dimensional pure evil characters of doom. Ramsay and Cersei no longer have any redeeming qualities as people, which is a problem, because it's as though they tried to make all villains like Joffrey. Really, they were all meant to be like Baelish and Tywin Lannister - with redeeming points and a believable level of support for their actions and causes.

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I think season 5 was the low point, as it was when the show began to remove all of its narrative elements except for plot twists. From thereon in, it has felt as though the writers believe that a plot twist is the only effective way to explain anything in a story.

It was also the moment when villains began to become cartoon one-dimensional pure evil characters of doom. Ramsay and Cersei no longer have any redeeming qualities as people, which is a problem, because it's as though they tried to make all villains like Joffrey. Really, they were all meant to be like Baelish and Tywin Lannister - with redeeming points and a believable level of support for their actions and causes.

Which is exactly what makes the books and what made this show in the beginning so awesome. Blurring the lines between good and evil and having characters, even the bad ones have qualities about them that the audience can relate to.

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It was bad, really bad. This season and season 5 were the worst. These people can't write coherently when they don't have a book to follow.

It makes me sad to see so many on this forum still trying to make sense of the plot; you can't. You can't look at the writing of the show too closely. Turn off your brain and just try to experience the emotional cues they're going for.

One thing this series has been great for: the visuals. Because of the budget Game of Thrones will always look amazing.

I don't understand how they can hire such amazing talent for those departments but not writing.

Agree with everything you say!

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Season 7 is the season that finally put show!Jaime back on book!Jaime's arc, at the very end.

That only works if you assume that most of S5 and S7 and all of S6 didn't actually happen for Jaime, and were just his imagination during one sleepless night in the Riverlands trying to figure out what to do about Cersei and picturing what it would be like if he went back to her.

But I think it may be worth assuming that.

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I can't stand this season. I translated the subtitle and had a very hard time... which shouldn't be the case because the vocabulary has gotten so easy, silly even. (What does in perpetuity mean? *turns to Tyrion*... seriously?) Embarrassing... not to mention the boredom. It's so boring even when I read/hear them for the first time. This season has been full of moments where characters basically walks side by side exchange words that had been said a million times and reciting old times like the series been air'd for 30 years and we need reminder to the early years, which it's not.

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You should know that without the original source season 8 will be like season 7 if not worse. I think the leaks on season 8 are pretty close to what will happen because it sound exactly what D&D would do and they already foreshadowed some things in this seasons (like all the talks on Dany being barren).

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Season was very meh. And I definitely won't be rewatching it outside of like 3 scenes - Olenna telling off Larry before her death, the Loot Train attack sequence, and the NK ganking the dragon out of the sky. Everything else is too subpar to waste my time with again.

For instance, I would rather drink bleach, vomit it back up into a cup, and then pour the contents of that cup into my eyeballs than rewatch a scene from Winterhell this season. That storyline challenges Dorne in S5 for worst season-long plotline; a plot that D&D stretched out because they needed their favorite actresses to do something and because they also wanted their big crowd-pleasing "shock" moment to happen in the finale (LF's useless, impotent ass dying which should shock no one).

And the big storyline coming into the season - the war between Dany and Cersei....psshh ahahahahahaha! They blew it.

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Compared to the rest of the series, season 7 was very mild. For most of it, there is no real threat apparent to the viewers. Before they got the dragon, the Army of the Dead didn't look like much of a threat, and Cersei was obviously incapable of challenging Dany. The political schemes come nowhere near what we are used to: Littlefinger's attempt at quarreling the Stark sisters was pathetic, Tyrion's plans were poor and yielded catastrophic results and Varys was inactive. And nothing particularly interesting or disturbing was revealed about the characters and the world.

However, I think this episode made me hopeful of a great final season. It has really set the scene, with the invasion of the dead and Cersei's plan. The Littlefinger saga is over. I loved the character, but the Winterfell arc this season was terrible. And Bran's revelation about Jon's real family is sure to create some friction.

Do you know what happens once you go to the top of a hill?

We have 6 episodes left and I prophesy to ALL we have only begun to see the worst in season 7. We will see ever-increasing forced interaction, tugged heart-strings, "meaningful" fan favorite relationships, love story pairings, painfully inept script, bad acting (due to painfully inept script), more and more wild inconsistencies in plot and backstory, VERY impressive CGI like eye candy, complete disregard of ALL book-related material or themes.

Once GOT decided to end the series, it fell into a wormhole of wrapping up a story created by a brilliant author who entertained meaningful character development and commitment to long-term storytelling and exchanged that for synthetic, "safe", overused and PEDESTRIAN plot points we see every day in TV and movies.

Had this show begun in season 1 as it displayed itself in season 7, it would not have been picked up as a series.

I don't think any reasonable person can ignore that GOT HBO began to unhinge in around season 5 and slid slowly down to what the OP is talking about. To expect something more from season 8 is to rest on a hope and prayer.

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I have a completely baseless theory that D&D were told the endgame by GRRM and they didn't like it. They've changed it to suit a vision they personally have of what the story is about, and how they'd like mysteries resolved.

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I loved the previous seasons, but this season just seemed rushed, irritating and nonsensical. In order for Cersei to still be alive and on the throne every other character and the whole of Westeros had to be turned into blundering idiots. The Winterfell storyline was also incredibly poor.

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I have a completely baseless theory that D&D were told the endgame by GRRM and they didn't like it.They've changed it to suit a vision they personally have of what the story is about, and how they'd like mysteries resolved.

That's wishful thinking on your part.

It is entirely possible that GRRM may change his original ending though.

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I have a completely baseless theory that D&D were told the endgame by GRRM and they didn't like it. They've changed it to suit a vision they personally have of what the story is about, and how they'd like mysteries resolved.

I believe you are right to a certain point. What I MORE believe is.........

...... the show producers chose to use TRIED AND TRUE FORMULAS to end the show instead of being true to the book story. I am sure Martin gave them a general idea of the end. But they chose to wraps things up in the story in a fashion such as when films or TV shows get shown to a select FOCUS GROUP to see if it is well received or not. And then they go back and tweak ideas and script to FIT what is deemed to be the most well-received ideas by the mass populace.

We can ALREADY predict many things that will come to pass in the end. I cannot go into them right at this moment, but anyone who chooses to follow my posts might see that I have been saying things - especially even before season 7 began - that were not and are not popular ideas and even laughed at and they become real as the show goes there.

I'm not saying I have some greensight, there are just SOME things you can observe and predict where the show is going with certain storylines or plot points. There are going to be some very unhappy people at the end of GOT. They have been preparing us (not on purpose) for a while now. The show has been preparing us. We need only observe the trends and see how things are going to go down.

ONE EXAMPLE:

When they made a point to reference that the Night King being killed might cause many if not all of the Army of the Dead to fall..... you only have to look at Star Wars: The Phantom Menace how Anakin blew up the ship in orbit and because of that, all the droids on the ground collapsed.

No? You can't see where that's going? Did it suck? The Phantom Menace is possibly the most despised movie in the Star Wars universe. Except for Darth Maul, everyone's Blu Ray purchase of that movie would have been eligible for return NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

A single dragon can being down the Wall? Dragons were a known entity in the ancient world, yet the thousands of years it stood and the magic and the builders never thought to protect it against one (1) undead dragon (flying with holes in its wings). Also and I may be mistaken, I tought it was said the dead could not pass through the Wall. Like, they couldn't go through that gate where the Rangers go. So what does this mean, you just have to carve out a sliver and the dead can pass? Sense, reason and continuity is gone in GOT.

Many can't or won't see it because they are still hanging on to when the show was really a good show and that was back maybe in season 5 and earlier.

We got introduced in season 6 to entire Houses being swept away in a single episode with existing NO heirs or blood relation to said ancient Houses and Strongholds. We got introduced to Stargates in season 7 where people are moving around Westeros at warp speed and time.

Dorne no longer exists, High Garden and............ all the inhabitants??....... just fade away into oblivion. Storm's End lays barren with no populace, no Baratheons. The "common folk" of the Twins or the Dreadfort..... *poof*............... no common folk in King's Landing. These are Houses we have been dealing with since the beginning of the show and I'm sure I'm missing some. All to make the script easier for Cersei to rule without issue, challenge or confrontation. That would waste time.

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The first time I noticed a huge dip in the quality of the show was all the way back when Yara attacked the Dreadfort. That type of stupidity should never have seen encouragement or funding.

Hardhome, The Sept, and Hodor's demise were all scenes that kept the previous seasons afloat. I mean, it doesn't undo Arya's storyline from last year for instance, but it keeps a balance. This season held none of those moments and relied on CG to fill the gap. The CG was nice, but even that was hit or miss. The dragons looked amazing while the enhanced numbers of the Dothraki looked like a joke from a youtube video.

This show has nowhere to go but down and they'll rely on CG to do it. Too many storylines to wrap up in 6 episodes. Just look what was accomplished in 7...

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No, I don't think this was an off-season. I think GoT is going to be one of those shows (and book series to an extent) where the start and middle are considerably more satisfying than the end.

GoT was at its most exciting when there were lots of players but no clear winners, and when the White Walkers were still largely a mystery and a somewhat mythical threat. What was once a complex political game full of moral ambiguity has now turned into a rather simplistic battle of good vs evil, with a generic Chosen Hero vs an equally generic Dark Lord.

The Good side will win in fairly predictable fashion... and while some established characters may die in the process, it will ultimately be of very little consequence at this late stage in the story.

On a positive note, i'm sure the special effects will be more spectacular in season 8 than ever before, and the battles will be more epic. That will be more than enough for a lot of people to rate it as the best season yet (though I won't be among them).

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I don't see it as an off-season, but as one setting the stage for the final season. For better or worse.

The story needs an end. Martin has given D&D the outline of that end. He himself is finding it very difficult to get there, and can't seem to finish his books. There is no evidence that suggests it was HBO's idea to make the series about a war with the Night King - and if you have a lot of characters with a lot of nuance, as in the earlier seasons, you're naturally going to have a different feel than when you have a limited number of characters and one main villain with no nuance whatsoever.

Of course even Cersei is now much more one-dimensional. But what did you expect when you cut out all the courtiers, bring down the number of meaningful advisers down to one, and get everyone of consequence in her wider family killed? The government of the Seven Kingdoms, such as it is, would be totally dysfunctional. But the series can't or doesn't want to introduce new characters because suddenly it's all about fighting an undead army.

I have some hope that there will be a comprehensive account of what motivates the Night King in season 8. If there isn't, it'll prove the now old phrase used by editors and publishers the world over: don't send samples, send a story. Everyone can start one, but you need to be able to finish it. HBO, for better or worse, is trying to finish it. Martin shows no signs of getting there this decade.